That might sound like a stupid question, let me describe what I've seen.

Twice I've bought 32Gb microSDHC cards from eBay, a Kingston and a SanDisk. For both of them, I plugged them into the Clip+ and formatted using SD format. Showed up as a 31Gb filesystem. I started loading using drag-&-drop from Windows, trying to put about 19Gb onto them. In both cases, the cards loaded fine -- for a while. As I tracked the progress of the file transfer, I could see mp3 files on the card in various subdirectories (band names under letter-name folders). After a while, Windows started throwing IO errors. When I disconnected the drive and reconnected, only some of my mp3 files were retained. Many files that previously showed up on the drive, were gone. But! If I checked the disk usage on the drive, the amount of space used corresponded with the files that had been transferred (even though the files no longer showed up on the drive).

So:

• Windows threw the errors about halfway or so into my transfer attempt
• After disconnecting/reconnecting, about an eighth of the files that I tried to transfer, showed up on the drive. These were playable.
• The disk usage reflects the file amount of data that had been transferred when the transfer died, even though those files were no longer present.
• Disk was no longer writeable.

I've been really lucky, my eBay sellers accepted the cards back no questions asked. But, since it's happened twice, I have to wonder: is it them, or me?

I've tried to format in both the Clip+, and in this crappy Targus SD reader/writer that I bought from Radio Shack. I've tried to write to the cards in both the Clip+ and the reader/writer. I've tried Windows drag&drop, and I've tried an xcopy batch script. I have WinXP, in case it matters.

Am I just unlucky? 2 dud cards in a row? Or is there a specific procedure one has to go thru, to load data onto these 32Gb microSDHC cards? Do these symptoms I've described sound typical of defective cards? Or am I doing something wrong?

Another thought-Did you try loading the cards using a newer SD reader designed for microSDHC cards? Also that means a direct D&D from your hard drive via XP. The cards will format smaller than 32gig's btw.
The symptoms you describe are generally those of defective cards. If you are absolutely certain that they are genuine-call either Sandisk or Kingston and ask them directly. They have ways of determining if you have real products and how to use them.

The issue often isn't what brands are legit., but rather whether a particular card is legit. or is a fake/counterfeit/second/defect. The reason why having return protection is nice to have.

Patriot; I bought an 8gig a few years ago and am still using it today. For my Clip+ I want a 16GB. The source I go to is a shop around the corner, they have a no return policy on anything thats been opened (Its a kind of 'ma and pa' place, but their prices beat the big stores all the time) Its where I bought my first microSD card from and have never had any issues with it.

They have 2 Patriot 16gig cards, one is more expensive than the other by 8$ because its the LX class. I'm not very familiar with the specifications either on these cards, does it matter which I get?